The Half-Year Dress

Leave a comment

Last January I set out to finish a dress in a week for an online contest. As nearly anyone could’ve predicted, I didn’t. But I did get it started. And then I stuffed all the components into a bag in my closet and forgot about it.

I know. You are now looking between the first sentence and the title thinking, “But it’s January again. That’s a whole year, not half.” And, yes, it is a full year since I started the dress, but that is just because I have been as lazy in writing about it as I was in making it.

Anyway, the dress and its pieces sat languishing at the bottom of my to-do list until around September. That was when my mom asked me to come work an outdoor tea for her organization, and I decided this dress would be perfect to wear to it. I had most of the main fabric cut and pinned, so it wasn’t too difficult to finish up.

The pattern is Butterick B5882, from the “Patterns by Gertie” collection. I used the print-at-home option to “save time.” I tihnk it ended up taking me just as long to paste all the parts together as it would have to get the physical pattern in the mail. But I have the full pattern saved in my computer if I were to ever want to make it again without having to keep way too many pieces of paper around.

The main fabrics of the dress are actually home dec cottons, and it is lined in muslin. If I wasn’t lazy, I could’ve dyed the muslin to match. But it took me almost ten months to sew the thing, so i think we all know that was just asking too much. I also decided to leave off the inner waist belt. I just like being able to breathe, really.

The thicker fabrics make the skirt nice and warm, which you expect to be a good idea for a mid-October tea. Unfortunately it was still 112°F, but it was good in theory.

Pups Save A Cake

Leave a comment

The little one has become obsessed with the show Paw Patrol over the summer. And with an end of summer birthday, that meant he knew just what he wanted for his birthday cake (instead of the “George and the man with the yellow hat” cake he had been asking for since his brother’s birthday): “Paw ‘trol wit Rubble sleeping on da grass and da Pup Pup Boogie Monster.”

I used the frozen buttercream transfer method to create the pieces. I found pictures from Google and put them together like that in Photoshop, created the “Happy Birthday” shield, then flipped it all so it would turn out the right side up.

I got a bit creative with mixing the colors so I only had to make one batch of icing for the decoration. I also baked a strawberry cake from this recipe, which is the only one I could find that didn’t use strawberry Jello. Then I had to make a second cake to turn it into a full cake because:

Once that was solved, and the cake was frosted, I pulled the tray from the freezer, flipped it over on top of the cake, and peeled off the parchment paper. All I had to do after that was add the smaller details and it was ready for the party.

Making the cake this way was super simple and created some really nice decorations. Way better than it would’ve turned out had I tried to draw them all on with icing.

Have you ever used icing transfers? Do you bake birthday cakes, or just order them from the store?

I Made Up My Mind…

Leave a comment

to make the Make Up Your Mind tank by Julie of Knitted Bliss. I fell in love with the Mr. McGregor’s Garden comfy sampler from Knit Picks (unfortunately not available anymore) and decided I would find a pattern for it once I got it. I tried to make my own first, but that didn’t work out quickly enough because I wanted this to be my project on vacation.

After a little searching and swatching, I decided Make Up Your Mind was what I wanted. I cast on provisionally for the 40 in size since my gauge was a bit smaller and I wanted it to be a little more flowy since it would be going over another shirt. I did mostly stick with length measurements from the 34 in size, except when it came to how many times to repeat decreases. Actually, I fudged a lot of the numbers because I kept getting off with the stitch patterns and would just decrease until I had an ok amount for the pattern. I was on vacation; I didn’t want to have to actually count my stitches.

This pattern was fairly easy to work, and very easy to follow. I’d say it’s a good bridge between beginner and intermediate skill sets.If you can knit, purl, yarnover, increase and decrease, you can make this pattern, too. Best of all, no sewing seams! You just graft the shoulders together and weave in the ends and you have a ready-to-wear shirt.